Why Everyone's Toxic Until Proven Otherwise | Dr. Aly Cohen on Hidden Chemical Exposures

Foreign. Today I have Dr. Ali Cohen, who is a board certified physician practicing rheumatology and integrative medicine, as well as environmental health expert in Princeton, New Jersey. When not seeing patients, Dr. Cohen is dedicated to informing as many people as possible of the lurking toxins in our lives, their impacts on our health, and how to reduce exposures. Dr. Cohen can often be found educating our audience through speaker engagements and as a guest expert for news outlets and podcasts. She also is the founder of Smart Human brand and podcast. Welcome to the show, Dr. Ali Cohen.

The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or medical guidance of Dr. Robert Whitfield.

All right, everybody, y' all hear me talk about environmental toxicity and sleep and food quality and fluid quality and air quality. So Now I have Dr. Ailey Cohen, who's an expert on all of this, including environmental toxicity, that she's written a book about in Detoxify, which I just finished, and other books and textbooks. So welcome to the show, Dr. Cohen.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, Rob. Thanks.

We had to start recording because we were having such an engaging conversation offline that we wanted to make sure that we didn't miss out on this. So for everybody, you know, I take care of patients with breast implant illness and we've, we've tried to clarify the, the cause and effect relationship of bacterial biofilm, but I always go back to Dr. Cohen, what somebody's exposures are. Kind of the way you describe it in your book, not in quite as detail because my background doesn't lend itself to that. But we do look at toxicity tests. I mean, I hang my hat on that now to help explain to people why they're experiencing a lot of what they experience.

Yeah. And it's interesting because, you know, you might find this shocking, but I don't do so much toxicity testing. And as you see in the book, I really want people to do a very reasonable use their insurance quest, LabCorp, that kind of thing in terms of just generalized stuff. But I used to do all of the really deep dives, and it turns out that people were spending at least more money in my area here in New Jersey, were spending more money on testing than they were on actually the solutions, which are even cheaper. And so what has evolved over 15 years of doing this work is that, you know, unless people need to be tested in order to motivate them into making changes, if they need to see those numbers, otherwise everyone's Toxic until proven otherwise. I mean, we're all loaded with these chemicals. And I say that because they're everyday chemicals. They're BPA from canned foods, and they're, you know, phthalates and perfumes and fragrances that we, you know, like and spray on. You know, you could even argue they're. They're in textiles. If you're working out, you might be exposed to some PFAS in the stretchy material or in your raincoat. They're everywhere. And so the real idea for me is to say, listen, is this someone who I'm meeting who doesn't necessarily buy into the topic of how environment plays a role in human health? That's where I might need to layer in some of those tests to prove to them that they have those in them. Otherwise, I'm really keen on what are the solutions anyway, no matter who you are, what your, you know, your background, your education, your lifestyle, what we can all as human beings make these changes to get some of these exposures out of our bodies.

And I think that's important because of how you're practicing versus, you know, where I'm sitting for surgery. Everybody wants, you know, some. What is it the classic is they want no downtime, no swelling, no pain, and they want to feel as good as they can the day after surgery. So everything in my life is just a little bit in terms of that context. So I always frame up discussions and we'll use a case example because I like it, because the patient. You and I are in our 50s now, and we were raised at a different time. So I think part of what I'm seeing now, unfortunately, is people are coming to me who were born the year I graduated from high school in 1987. And that's a little disturbing every time I see that on a sticker of my patient. But nonetheless, I feel like when I have discussion with that patient, and you talk eloquently about this in your book Detoxify, which I recommend everybody either listen to, which I have to because of my schedule, or just buy and read it because it frames out nicely. What I'm going to say is, like, if you don't know how to make and start making choices, her book helps you do that. Now, what I do one on one with patients, Dr. Cohen, is I listen first and foremost because I don't need to make a diagnosis. People don't come to see me to make a diagnosis of anything. They're coming to have an explant surgery they've decided upon. And that's Basically done. What I actually help them do is what your book lays out is help them make some better choices. So I had a 35 year old mom come, she's got five kids, which to me is just like unfathomable because I have two and I feel like I have 20. And she was telling me how they all have ADHD and all these things. And I said, well, what do you all eat? Like what? Just tell me, what do you do? Like, what's their snack or something? Well, candy. I was like, oh, okay. And what do y', all, what do they drink? Monster and Red Bull. I. I swear to God. Seven year old drinking Monster and Red Bull. And I said, okay, and what, like, are they like chips or something? And so, you know, I don't know if you all have these New Jersey, but they're called Takis. And Takis are this, like this gas station garbage. My son loves them just garbage food. So I just told her, I was like, look, you know, I, I'll help you, but you can't be my patient. I won't operate on folks who eat this way, drink this way. Like this is just something you can't do. So she wanted to learn. So in that setting, you know, I said, well, although these are not, you know, nothing's a perfect situation like you describe in your book. Like, these are some choices you can change. You can change from, you know, Monster and Red Bull with Zevia, which is not perfect, but it's a different option. And you know, we have the Human Chocolate Company. It was an Austin company that still, you know, for us is still protected ingredients, basically, even though it was sold. So I said, they can have chocolate. And, you know, Siete was just bought by another company, but it's an awesome. It was out of Austin. CSA chips are, you know, made with avocado oil. So I was just trying to give her some different options, you know, and she's. I was like, you know, some of these, I'm sure they're coin as, you know, like they're very sugar addicted. I was like, so what do you like to snack on or what do you do? And she's like, well, I have to take, you know, Adderall to stay awake. And I drink a lot of, you know, coffee. I'm like, well, there's nothing wrong with coffee. Like, do you drink? What is. What are you drinking? And she wasn't drinking coffee. She was having a lot of sugar with a little bit of coffee. And so I say that mean, like, you were probably raised a certain way I was raised a certain way, but if nobody helps you learn how to make those choices, then that begets the problem, right?

So, you know, I have patients that come to me who could school me on a few things, I would say. And I have patients that have never seen a vegetable before, you know, and what I realize is because I'm humble in my own journey, as you read throughout the book, I mean, when I was pregnant with my second son, my first son, I was rolling up to McDonald's and getting the deluxe breakfast every morning when I opened up my drawer at one point 15 years ago, learning about phthalates because I'd never learned in med school any of this material. I pulled out a drawer of 17 containers of plug in air fresheners. And I think part of this journey for me has been understanding not only the mistakes that I would say are mistakes only because I didn't know better, not because I knew the science, but that everyone has an opportunity to do better if they know better. And as a person who's a rheumatologist, an integrative medicine physician, understanding nutrition, diet, all those things, but as an immunology person, one of the key things I always tell people, it's very basic, is that the body works beautifully, the immune system works really beautifully over millions of years. The problem is, is that we're now exposed to so much more stuff than the body has ever been used to experience and able to handle whether that's foreign material in the body, right, like plastics and silicone, and whether it's, you know, the foods, chemicals that we eat. Right. That now has created a really big problem, even with food allergies and kids not being able to have, you know, a whole host of foods that I had and you had growing up. So I think what we really need to say is, you know, the immune system is doing its job. The problem is our environment and our habits and our lifestyle and our choices. And wherever we can intervene is the starting point. And understanding how to share that with patients who may not have ever heard of this concept. Like I didn't even as a physician 15 years ago. And so anyway, I, I just basically want people to start, keep it simple, stupid. Very simple changes. Think high yield, like food is one of the things you asked. I will tell you that I think drinking water is actually probably the most unrecognized contributors to human health problems because none of us really understand, I didn't either that understand the water system in the US And I think once we start to understand the old Infrastructure that manages the water that we supposedly will end up drinking in our public system. We once we understand how outdated it's from 1974 safe drinking water act, that nothing's changed since then, when they've only regulated, or I should say managed, measured and fixed 91 chemicals, when we have over 100,000 that can get into our water system and do many of them. I mean, we're talking a lot of different chemicals that get in our drinking water. And our municipal tap actually serves 85% of the US population where.

So make sure that they understand that. So, like the hormones, the chemicals, the arsenic, like where I grew up, there's a lot of arsenic in the groundwater.

Which sewage becomes drinking water in our water system.

Yeah, that's from your book. I was impressed upon how much because we have a home filtration system. And you know, I went right to my wife after I finished the book and I was like, hey, I want to know the specs on the new filtration system. Because we switched out, we went. We've always been very aggressive with like the air and the water and the food and, you know, all the things. And not always in the last, certainly the last nine years, we've been more and more aggressive. And the thing in Texas is the water is not good.

It's not good nationally. And the reason is it follows the same law in New Jersey as it follows in Texas.

Right, right. It's just. And I mean, it's. There's no chance I'm drinking out of a tap anywhere. It's not even remotely going to happen. So. And to your point, like some of the bottled water, and I tell people, like, they bring me these plastic bottles of water, I'm like, shouldn't be drinking out of that. It's got phthalates. You know, it's not going to be something that's going to help you, but maybe just go into, like you said in the book, like investment in that RO or some version of an RO system just to help take that portion of the equation that you know, because if everybody listening like you don't intermittent fasting and all the right food choices and you know, I'm a big air quality person because Lord have mercy, we have a lot of problem with air quality. And then like, you are definitely the water quality person from your book. So just break it down for the audience so they know, like, hey, this is the choice I can start, you know, making right away to help.

Yeah. And so like everything I talk about in the book, I talk about high Yield choices first, because, you know, the, the greatest yield and return on investment for making yourself healthy is the stuff that you do every day. Your habits, what you drink every day, what you eat every day. Those are high volume types of changes that can improve your health. And so when it comes to water, which really we kind of take for granted, I'm saying kind of pay attention to this one because we cook with food, we drink our. We need water every day since birth, right until death. And you can't survive without water over a three day period. Our bodies are made up 85% water. I mean, we are made of water essentially. And so getting this right is kind of important. So any filtration, I always say, is better than no filtration. I mean, this is the fact that people are even cognizant of filtration being an issue. I applaud that. Now the question is, what's the cheapest way to get a better, more aggressive water filtration system? And, and that's the angle. So the pitchers are carbon block. You know, when you have a pitcher, I had pitchers for years, and that's a big chunk of carbon. What water kind of goes through in your pitcher to go quickly, right. So you don't have to wait all day. Shower heads can be carbon block for your shower. They're 20 bucks at any big box. You know, store, Home Depot, Lowe's, whatever. The refrigerator door is carbon block. Now, carbon block is reasonable in terms of, people think of price and also convenience. But guess what? It's so much cheaper even to get something more aggressive called a reverse osmosis water filtration. Whether it's on the countertop of your kitchen or whether you get it installed by a plumber underneath, which is much more convenient. Trust me, I try out all of these. And having two kids and drinking a lot of water, you really have to keep filling it up on the countertop. So just thinking about all this, but Those are like $275 and a plumber's 150 bucks in New Jersey to put it in in one hour. And I timed the guy, you know, like all they're doing is splitting the water line. One goes to the RO under the sink, you know, the other line is the, you know, the water from the faucet for the dishes. So the idea that we. Now, I've watched the RO systems come down over 10 years. I've seen them go from super expensive to more and more competition. They are now much more accessible financially to almost everyone. And they turn out to be a little bit even cheaper than the carbon block because the carbon blocks require replacement cartridges, you know, replacements. So much so that when you do the math, it actually is cheaper to have that 400 bucks upfront for a plumber and an RO filter. And you don't even have to worry about it for six months until you change out that cartridge for 30. You know, those, those inserts for, you know, with $30. So the idea is it's just a better system. But RO filter, so people understand it's about. It's like a sieve. It's the smallest pores you can find that catches everything. So you're going to take out all of the chemicals that have been not all, but vast majority of chemicals. And then you're also going to take out anything that you might think is good, like minerals. But we don't get nutrition from our water. People always say it's dead water. And I say, well, listen, have that RO water with a great salad and a great, you know, Mediterranean diet food. Pesticide free if you can find it. But that water is going to be your source of nutrition because that's not a reason not to clean your water.

Yeah, and maybe I think you highlighted something that I didn't remember from training. I did a lot of kidney and or liver transplant cases, and of course we dealt with folks who were receiving dialysis. And RO is basically the core system involved with dialysis. Although, you know, you don't, like, probably in training, I don't actually remember if it's even discussed in terms of filtration or anything like that, because everything we do, you know, in a, in a operating room type situation, of course, it's like every bag I use that has fluid in it, sterile. And, you know, it's got specific. Either it's normal saline or depending on what we're doing. And then obviously the anesthesia folks are using bags of sterile fluid. So it's a very different environment. So the transition from the OR environment to when you were discussing in your book the way it has to work in dialysis, which makes perfect sense. And I was given blood the other day and the lady was asking me about doing some extra cells or something. They need another appointment because I was like, you guys can take as much blood as you want to have my hematocritz, fine. And she's like, oh, you know, we need more time. And I'm like, whatever. But, you know, they're sitting there with the same type of systems in place because they can't run those systems and risk, you know, putting something back into somebody as they're doing a dialysis case.

For sure. I mean, I grew up, my dad's a nephrologist, my brother's a nephrologist. I mean, I, I even just had another tour of the dialysis unit with the people who manage, you know, federal, federally regulated water for dialysis. By the way, dialysis machines are basically federally owned. I don't know if a lot of people know that. And they require once a month, these units, the group that comes in and actually does all the testing, we're talking multiple huge vats of water of the cleaning process. Now, you're not going to get that level of cleaning like you would in, you know, in your home, because you're talking about a smaller version of cleaning before it gets into a tank that you're going to be drinking off of, you know. But the idea is that it's the same concept, is that you have to pull off everything. And in, in the case of dialysis patients, we're talking the most immune compromised patients of pretty much anybody, right? In many ways. So they actually cannot be exposed to bacteria and viruses in yeast and mold. And so that's why they were originally designed in the 70s, this reverse osmosis technology. And what they didn't know back then is that we would have thousands of compounds that are bigger in size that would catch into that sieve of ro filtration after they designed it back in the 70s. So interestingly enough, they did the most aggressive creation back then and it's really served them for decades.

So initially, if somebody's listening, they want to take a step, a filtration, whether it's a simple pitcher with a carbon block filter to start, which is not obviously super expensive, because like in your book, you highlight a case of somebody who was having a very specific problem with mouth ulcers from drinking tap water in New York. And for everybody listening, tap water is not something you should ever be drinking. I don't care what country you're in, it's mine. You know, we're in the United States right now. But I have clients come from all over the world and I he you would never catch me on a trip drinking tap water. It's not going to happen. So let's transition off of that because that's the actionable, you know, step from that.

Yeah, very actionable. And by the way, so going into a little bit more, and I have a whole chapter on other aspects, like for instance, if you're going to choose bottled Water?

Yeah.

You may have no choice. Right? I'm. I'm a realist. I live in the real world. Right. You can't always bring your water with you. Which, by the way, I bring my water to dinners and lunches and it doesn't bother me, but I'd rather not pay for bottled water in plastic. And I don't know what they have at the restaurant and I don't know where that water's coming from. And, you know, so, you know, it's become a habit that I don't even squirm about. But it turns out that you can actually take a second and look at all your choices. And you can see ones that are cleaned by reverse osmosis, some that are distilled, which means just raising to high temperature and removing any infectious etiology, but not necessarily compounds of chemicals. So distilled is limited. Reverse osmosis is better than that in terms of its cleaning process. Now, you're not going to get rid of microplastics from the plastic bottles, right? That's made a lot of news, and I think people should start paying attention to that as well. But the idea is you can also take your stainless steel. I have one. I'm not going to show the brand stainless steel container with you everywhere you go when you travel. Stainless steel. And you can actually fill up at the carbon block filters in the airport, for instance. Even my hotel in California had the same carbon block filter in the hotel. And so I use that when I didn't have access to RO or I didn't want to use plastic. So again, keeping that bottle with you gives you many more options than just resigning yourself to plastics all the time.

That's a great tip. Obviously, you travel a lot. I travel a lot. I'm bad about carrying, actually a yeti, but I. Or something, you know, Austin's got yeti's like, dominant here. Like, you can't go anywhere without finding a yeti for sale somewhere. So that's a very simple stainless, you know, product. And then obviously ceramic or glass to carry just so you have it. And then like, you know, Dr. Cohen's giving you a great tip about one. You know, you don't have to leave it in the plastic water bottle if you have yours with it. You just don't. Can't source the water. You can just dump that into your container that you have. If you have it, that's, you know, at least an option to get it out of plastic. Because people show up to. Honestly, because they travel to see me a lot but if you listen to me, I tell you not to drink out of plastic, and then somebody will show up, inevitably, with a plastic water bottle, which, you know, they're traveling and. But it's like you said, like, I almost need swag to send them to. Just, you know, travel with my, you know, whatever, you know, stainless product or recommend, you know, hey, just travel with your. Your stainless product you can get access to. There's a ton of them on, you know, online. So that's a. That's a great tip in terms of water. So you definitely are leading the way in terms of water. I want to, you know, go. I think I'll leave kind of food out of the. Out of the discussion and go to air. I feel like. And, you know, with the recent fires in Los Angeles, I feel terribly about those folks there because that. That is like apocalyptic problem transition into something where. Whether you live around industry or. We have a lot of problems with cedar, oak and mold based on the. We call it the green belt here. It's a protected environmental area. Man, the cedar here gets just wicked because Austin really doesn't get cold. So it's constantly being hit with pollen, like, most. Most places will freeze, and then you get a reprieve. Not here. There's. It doesn't really get super cold. Like, I trained in the Midwest, I lived in the mountains, Sierra Nevadas. I know what cold is where there's feet and feet and feet of snow. You know what cold is? Being in New Jersey, Austin, you know, it's literally going to be 100 degrees today.

And so, I mean, these are all environmental exposures. I even equate them with light and noise. You know, like, I mean, you think about environmental health as a header, not to over overwhelm your audience, but when you say pollen or you say, you know, any other air phthalates and fragrance and perfumes and air fresheners and candles and incense, or even just VOCs, volatile organic compounds that come from new carpeting or new products. I mean, all of these things are a really big deal in your home if your home is economically sealed and tight. Because we've progress, so we don't have heavy, you know, expensive energy bills, right? We've become sealed into our homes and to our office spaces. And one of the things I talk about is like, you know, you can't always correct the pollen issue, but you can correct the home environment and your work environment as best you can, because that's where you have control. Just like you have control over what food you choose, how Your water's cleaned, what you put in your body, what you put on your body, what we also have choices about what we breathe. And that has a lot to do with the choices we make bringing into our home, which becomes like a sealed environment. And anything that's in the air, by the way, will land on surfaces and will make its way into dust, which actually has been studied to be one of the most, you know, it's filled with chemicals from your day to day life. Right. Dust finds it's not just skin cells, which we would imagine, and pets and pet dander and fur and all that. It's really a lot of the chemicals from things that we may not even consider or think about that make their way into dust. And that's where pets lick their paws and kids have hand to mouth behavior in terms of their toys. So I just spent, I think it's probably two hours cleaning my bathroom with a couch, a couch that had no flame retardants. Fortunately, I worked that out after years of having one that did. And in the back was all these dust balls that I just didn't have a chance to get to. And I was thinking about doing a video and then I didn't look great. So I thought, oh, I'll just put this off to another moment. But I was looking at all this dust and I thought to myself, this is one of the greatest places to start within your home. Not just not allowing some of these chemicals in through some of our choices, but in the meantime, getting rid of all those dust areas and H vac systems and HEPA filters on your vacuum. And wet wipes, not chemical wipes like we're marketed, all these chemical wipes which just adds the problem back into the, the environment of our living space. So control.

And what's a good just wet wipe? Is there like a basic organic one? Or how about.

How about a cotton hand towel and water?

Yeah, you mentioned cotton a ton. And I'm glad you brought that because I think, you know, when we were growing up, cotton was like the thing and everything. Like the Fruit of lulu underwear were 100 cotton or whatever the stupid thing was. And it's like it's all falling out of favor for cheaper other, other, you know, products that are, are going to have more chemicals in them.

Yeah, I mean, I'm wearing something that's not 100 cotton. I mean, look, you can't be worrying about everything. And again, I walk through people this 21 day plan, I have, you know, the 50 questions that everyone can go through in terms of Just really reasonable questions where you put a one or a zero and you kind of add up your score. My glasses that I'm we all morning. These are plastic. They're on my nose all day. You know, my, my, my phone, I'm holding onto a plastic case. Like, we can't be perfect. It's not about perfection. It's about doing the best we can, but thinking about more. So I think internal exposures that happen dermatologically. We get a lot of these exposures through our skin. And I talk about which ones and how to fix that with personal care products and even, you know, boys and men with body sprays, my kids cologne, all that. But we really want to be thinking, I think top down is the largest exposures is food, water, air. Those are big topics that I think it's not hard to work your way through in a reasonable pace.

You know, I was just saying, like, you know, so we've talked about water and your choices for air. I have some specific. Because like you've done with ro. I get really nerdy about air. I just do. And the filtration things, like if people. How's this filter versus that filter? I'm like, not good. And I don't promote a bunch of different systems. If somebody wants to learn what I talk about in terms of air, that can go to the links on my YouTube page and see it. But you need to have something additional, just like Dr. Cohen's describing for water. There needs to be some other layer to help you. It's the same with air. And then we're going to go to, I think which is the hardest, most confusing and expensive proposition always, which is food. Yeah.

Yeah. And again to your point, you know, when it feels important to you, that's okay. I mean, water feels important to me. Air feels important. Whatever your reasoning for prioritizing, that's all good. As long as you feel something right.

Before we go air. Let's just say one thing. When people move to Allergy Austin, they bitch about allergies. I don't think it has anything to do with allergies. I think it all has to do with your increasing your exposures so much to what's in our air. And then when it gets into your home, like, you just. There's no balance anymore. You've lost balance and you can't handle what's coming in and facing you all the time versus your home. We didn't really talk about homes. Homes are a mess. Just in general, homes are and can be your biggest problem in this yeah.

And one of the ideas that just came into my head from what you just said. And by the way, a couple quick tips. You don't always have to start with the filtration system if depending on your costs and all those open windows, if you feel like it's the right time, check the air quality. I have all those recommendations in the book. Add plants to your home. Plants are naturally. They help clean the air. Don't buy the products in the first place. We don't need 25 cleaning products. We don't need a door handle cleaner, a window cleaner, surface cleaner, a sink cleaner, an oven cleaner. Guess what? We have do it yourself recipes with vinegar, sea salt, you know, clean oils, clean fragrance, nothing that's synthetic. Or you could look at the resources for choosing products at the store that are actually really low toxicity. So by cutting off the influx of a lot of these chemicals into your home, and you are saving a lot of absorption into your body and into your family. And so that's a great place to start, is cut off the flow. Then you open windows, then you circulate air, then you move to filters. And filters are very inexpensive these days in terms of ones you can get right on online. So I think layer it in so that you don't overwhelm yourself. And then now to your point about food. You know, one of the key things about this topic is that thousands, thousands, we're up to about 100,000 chemicals that have now been created since mostly since World War II is when we had a big rise in those, you know, creation of synthetic chemicals for wartime, all sorts of things for food containers, for pesticides, for overseas fighting for all of that. And those 100,000 estimated chemicals that we're now using in everyday life have never been required to be tested for safety or toxicity, especially in vulnerable, you know, demographics. Pregnant women, young children who are not detoxifying at their ages because they just haven't grown the ability to do so at that stage. But also teenagers who have a ton of hormonal changes which affect immune system as well, not just the hormones that we see as parents, like I do. But that's actually one of the areas and one of the ways in which many of these chemicals have been implicated mechanistically in affecting our health is by mimicking hormones and disrupting the signaling as well as the immune system. So just to give that as a layer, you know, for why people should care. And then there's even menopause, which is another really important time of change for the human body, where there's hormonal change and also immune change. So, you know, that being said, food, one of the big issues that we haven't really addressed, or it's being brought up in the media, obviously, is food coloring, food additives, food preservatives, all of those chemicals. And there's about 10,000, maybe 11 if you argue for the extra thousand, that there's really so many of these chemicals that have been allowed into our food system without required testing for safety, toxicity, or outcomes in terms of human health. And so because our food system has kind of let the, you know, the horse, you know, out of the stable, I'll use that as a Texas kind of metaphor. You know, we are now in the position as citizens to really do this work ourselves, which is what I'm always pushing people to do. Don't wait for regulation. Don't wait for another. You know, I've been through four presidents. I've been through three hss direct. You know, I. Regulation is great if we can pull it off, but I wouldn't wait for it in the course of a human lifetime. I mean, it's just not going to happen in terms of one color being out instead of a thousand colors being out. I want people to think about, just do it for yourself as much as you can, and with some guidance, which I wish I had 15 years ago. And now that I know a lot, I'm trying to share with people to do it themselves. The thing about food is that there's only one regulation that has any teeth in our food system. It's the one and only. It's called USDA Organic. USDA Organic certification. Although it's not perfect, there's lots of flaws in there, too. Took 10 years in the 1990s to develop. It went into play around 2002. And it requires no synthetic chemicals in the food colors, preservatives, additives does not allow genetically modified ingredients. And it has to be, if it's organic, 100% of that regulation. Whereas cosmetics can say one ingredient is organic, but the rest are synthetic. So very different from products versus food and drinks in the US So I think people should understand that that really limits pesticides, fertilizer, chemicals. It is the only thing that protects us between manufacturing and our belly. So if you can choose frozen USDA Organic if cost is certainly a concern for everybody. Frozen USDA Organic with the seal is in every big box store across the country. I check it out everywhere I travel. So all of the big chain supermarkets, if you can get to those, they know how lucrative this is. So they've actually opted to create their own lines of frozen produce that's USDA organic and by the way, it also has the highest nutrient value. So one of the things you were talking about is when people move to Austin, they are hit hard. Same in New Jersey. A lot of people are hit hard with allergies. Another piece of this is how do we get our bodies healthy independent of chemicals? What is the nutritional value of what we eat every day? That helps the human body and has for millions of years to thrive. And that can be obtained even in frozen USDA organics because it's flash frozen. All the nutrients are contained and, and then you get this added value of being pesticide free because you know of organic regulation. So to me, when I was growing up, fresh was ideal. And unless you have like fresh farmer's markets that are local and you can wash, even if they're pesticide, you know, not organic, you can wash them and you know, you have all this nutritional value picked that morning. But for mere mortals, most of the country, you don't always have that option. It may not be in season. Frozen USDA organics are such a way. I look at it as like democratizing the food availability for nutrition. I really do. Because everyone can get those frozen USDA organic frozens as opposed to maybe fresh. Fresh is not fresh in the supermarket. It travels too long, it loses nutrient value.

And I think that's the big, you know, I try to explain this all the time. I mean, the country is vast. Like nobody gets like our country. Like, you know, if you're from another country and you show up just so everybody's clear, Spain fits inside of Texas. Let's just for comparison sake, so everybody's on the same page. I know, you know, they, they're a little bit concerned about our ability as Americans to understand geography. But that being said, like in, you know, my environment, it takes 10 hours driving a car west to even get out of Texas. So the fact that you can go to and the market here is h E B and it's a Texas family owned business and that's the grocery store. So, you know, if you're listening and you're in Texas, you know, Dr. Cohen has given you an idea. Like I think the criticism is where the opt out is it's too expensive, I can't do it. Versus you're giving an opt in, which is the frozen USDA organics gives you an opt in. That's a choice that you can make that is on a cost perspective, relatively affordable. So people can make that decision. Because just like the discussion we had offline, I had a patient who was drinking Monster and Red Bull and eating Takis and Skittles and M and Ms. And whatever. All that stuff is just garbage. And you should not put that into your system. And your kids should not be putting that in their system, because depending. And I've always been super curious about genetics. So I look at genetics and genet, this thing constantly in that, you know, many of us don't methylate well, which makes our ability to detox, you know, more difficult. Many of us don't have good vitamin D pathways. We don't use antioxidants. Well, like glutathione. We have difficulty with energy. So maybe different mechanistic things are problematic for us. So from a, like, a base genetic level, you only have certain detox capability. And what Dr. Cohen's eloquently described, both in her book and in the discussion today is like, okay, these are just some simple choices. Like, you can make these simple choices, and they're not complex. Like, she's telling you, like, this is available, basically. It's the one thing the government has actually done for food. And, you know, I'm in Texas, so of course, like, I got a ranch. If there's some piece of meat, like, I can go get it, like, basically, because there's a farm around here or whatever. So for us, like, we're just. Our big thing is like, fruit. Like, getting fruit in Texas is like, it's got to come from Mexico. It's just not that easy. Other than peaches. There's, like, a big peach thing here in Texas. So, like, every, you know, corner, when you go out in the country, in the Hill country around Austin, there's somebody selling, you know, peaches or there's honey, then that's kind of. That's. That's what you get. You know, everything else is really coming from Mexico. When it comes to, you know, like a vet, you know, anything else, like an avocado, it's going to come from Mexico. So. So we've covered, you know, the fluid, you know, certainly, you know, water filtration. I've talked about air, and you mentioned the. The food. And, you know, even, you know, some folks are very careful to say, like, it. It's. It's not. It doesn't sound like it should be super simple or cheap to eat better, but it actually is something as simple as going and buying, like, short rib or something that's not that expensive, or even ground beef. It's not that it's not that expensive. If you just look at something that's actually like one thing that bugs me is they cut up vegetables and stick it in a plastic thing and charge like three times as much as the vet or the fruit costs. I meant, I'm sorry, I misspoke. That shit drives me nuts. Yeah, you buy it, you're both, you're eating out of plastic and you're paying like three times what the actual fruit cost.

I posted once, I have a whole, you know, Instagram, social media, like, you know, TikTok, whatever called the smart human. And I've posted images of literally bananas that are peeled in plastic wrap. And I'm thinking myself, like really, you know, and so we've gotten so attached to this idea that packaged food is ideal when it's not because it's convenient, but it's not. And you know, listen, look, I don't say all organic is the only way to go. There are plenty of people who don't have access or maybe it's not organic because, you know, like for instance, the dirty doesn't clean 15 list, which is really put out every year, that are the non organic produce that has the highest and lowest levels of residue on the surface. Right. So you can even choose off those lists to figure out what you want that's not organic or you can even rinse your non organic produce and agitate it in one part baking soda, three parts water, or one part white vinegar, which I think everyone should have in their home to three parts clean water. And we have it in the book. These are do it yourself combinations that cost nothing to buy white vinegar really. And it does such a nice job of removing some of the most basic residues and if you can't find organic foods. And so I look at it like everyone should have all these options on the table. Whether you're in Texas, whether you're in New York, whether you're in New Jersey, whether you're in Florida, whether you're in Minnesota. These are all the options. Choose the ones that are best for you and just embrace them and do the best you can. Because like you said, it's so variable. Access is variable as well. And so if you could grow your own food and it would be ideal, that would be awesome. But not everyone has that ability to do it. But we can be conscious as we're purchasing and where we get our stuff. So, you know, it's just kind of like how do we do the best we can under the circumstances.

Yeah. And I like the way you talk about it because it's very. We're in alignment with, you have to start somewhere kind of what are the actionable steps? And you know, I'm not super. I'm very rigid now in terms of how I think about this. Like, I won't take people on who aren't making these habitual changes because surgery is not a substitute for better habits. So when people have a problem and, you know, it desires a surgical solution outside of an acute cancer case or trauma or something like that, I think you have a lot of Runway to help them make better choices. So that in the recovery process things are streamlined and more effective and easier for them. Because, you know, I've operated for 30 years and I look back and I'm like, all right, some people do extremely well after surgery. And I'm like, okay, what are they doing versus the folks who have a more difficult time take longer. And you know, if you're trying to compare them, I've only had one person in my entire practice because everybody gets a tox test. Everybody has some genetic testing to help us better clarify how to help them. One person had talks test that was completely normal, like nothing, even in the moderate category. And I was like, wow, okay, let's figure out why this person did that. And in 2015, because she was going to start a family, she just decided on her own that she was just going to make her household as non toxic as possible. So all the things before Detoxify was written by you or clarified, you know, in your book and as you discuss on your appearances and shows, she just started doing that. And I was like, oh my gosh, what a very, like, forward thinking, you know, novel way to live. And what do you think her surgery and recovery were like? Well, it was super simple. Like everything about her process afterwards was, you know, more streamlined because one, she already did all the things in terms of air quality and fluid quality and food quality. And her home was detoxified. And the skin care products she used are, you know, to the best of her ability, controlled for, you know, chemicals. So her exposures were really limited. And I was just like, we haven't talked about mindset or, you know, resolving trauma or anything like that, which are very large impediments, you know, to my patient population. But she had done all that work too. So she had got her mindset a certain way and she'd got her, her exposures, to your point in your book, really reduced because you can't eliminate them. But you can definitely, according to, you know, this patient Example in your book, and thousands of patients that we take care of, you can modify them and make a tremendous amount of headway.

Well, you can. You know, the argument in the book, which is, you know, different from previous books and textbooks I've written, is really that I've taken 22 years of rheumatology training and work with the immune system. I see rheumatoid lupus patients, you know, you name it. Crohn's Ulcerative Colitis, Ms. The idea is that many of these chemicals can affect your immune system, even your healing, even your levels of fatigue. I have patient cases that talk about these different everyday people and that you can offset. You can modify your body's exposure, and that therefore plays likely into your body's physiology and changes the destiny of your health. Now, do I see patients that have been doing every dietary thing you could applaud in the world and still get sick? Sure, because it's a combination of not just our lifestyle, how much we sweat, how much we exercise, how much our stress levels affect our gut microbiome, but our environment plays a key role in our genetic predisposition. And I think when you can look at the big picture and say, look out of all of this, that determines potential health risk in our lives, throughout our lives, I can intervene here. I have control here, here and here. I can add sweat and exercise. I can get better sleep and clear out the glymphatic system of my body that helps clean chemicals while we're sleeping around the brain and spinal cord. I can add in nutrition and certain components like cruciferous vegetables that upregulate the body's ability to detoxify through the liver conjugation system. So you can add in all these things that really offset the genetic, or I should say, epigenetic changes that are gene expression. You can do this, but you may not always be able to change your predisposition. And so when it comes to what you're saying, yes, everyone comes in with a whole different history and a whole different lifestyle and a whole different predisposition. And it's really, how do we meet each other to do some of the most basic things and walk through them? Because when you don't know, you don't know. And that is kind of how a lot of these rheumatology patients and how this book was laid out was to really talk about inflammation and how the body's inflammatory process can affect everything from breast implants to dental implants to rheumatoid arthritis risk, to management of chronic Inflammatory conditions that people are managing, not just trying to prevent the disease from happening and even keeping people in remission from cancers. That's an inflammatory response. So I want people to sort of say, look, no matter who you're talking about in the book, as a case, we all have an opportunity to reduce some of that inflammatory process that is so linked to so many chronic health conditions and acute, you know, like food allergies and those type of things. But we have so much more control than we think we do. And I think that changes the mentality of, of how proactive we are when we think we're the victims, when we really feel like we've been dealt a hard lot, a bad situation, which we all have, including me at times with our health, we want to be able to turn it into a positive, you know, I'm proactive, I'm empowered. This is how I'm going to take this process on. And it's, it kind of begets itself. It's a positive reinforcement, you know, a cycle. So, you know, I think all of these things that we're talking about today are just great ideas. I think to dive in deeper, you just want to sort of tip toe into it and move through the process as best you can.

Yeah, I think, I mean, that's a good way to conclude. I would encourage everybody listening to this show to pick up Dr. Cohen's book, Detoxify. I found it to be extremely important in clarifying and reinforcing how I think about these specific problems. And because I'm operating in folks who have chronic inflammation with acute, sometimes imposed on a chronic inflammatory state. And then if they don't, I certainly cause it with surgery. I cause acute inflammation. I'm the biggest promoter of inflammation because I operate as a profession. That's what I do. I create inflammation. You have to recover from it and you have to have a strategy. And the tactics, those are all discussed in Dr. Cohen's book. So, Dr. Cohen, can you just give everybody a way to find you and go get your book?

Sure. So I am in New Jersey, Princeton, New Jersey, and I'm an integrative rheumatologist, environmental health physician. But I actually talk about a lot of stuff with a lot of people, even their kids, health and nutrition, all those things because of my training. But I do telemedicine so people can actually reach out and I can do telemedicine consults. I am also on social media as the smart human with Dr. A.Y. cohen. So YouTube is Ailey Cohen, but TikTok, Twitter, Instagram. And the smarthuman.com is the launching place for a lot of my work. And I actually have little courses, too. People are the Smart Human Academy, which is like a little mini course on heavy metals, a little mini course on EMF radiation, a little course on detoxification, so in case people want to dive deeper and not take the book into their hands. So the idea is there's lots of options. And yeah, please follow the Smart Human on all of the social media feeds and learn little bits of nuggets here and there and solutions.

All right.